big, giant OOPS

i did not meet my monday deadline of having all my lesson plans done. as of this morning, i have 14/15 completed. today i met w/ this awe-inspiring teacher named Liza. liza teaches lit at community college and has her shit TOGETHER. i'm so happy that she is a teacher. anyway, what came out of this meeting was a realization that my curriculum development is way off. i have built in about 13-14 books to read in addition to some other supplemental readings. i based this off of my experience and other folk's feedback on their experiences in lit courses or freshman year reading and comp courses. i was very, very happy w/ my lesson planning until today. when i met w/ liza she told me she teaches 3 books a semester in a literature course at community college. THREE BOOKS to my 13. she broke down what it takes to teach at community college, which among other things is a lot of skill building. we had a long talk about her classes, the politics of community college, and all the stuff i should get if i want to teach there in the future. very, very helpful.

anyway, what does this 3 v 14 books mean? i have to REDO my curriculum. i whittled my list of books down to: Woman Warrior, M Butterfly, Temperature of this Water, Dictee, and Rolling the Rs, plus one student-selected reading for a total of six books (a student at Skyline told me today, MAYBE he'd sign up for a class that was going to read six books, def not 13). i'm now expanding each of these books into multiple lesson plans, which is painstaking work. i'm also building in more time for.. i'm not sure what to call it... not skill building but a lot more peer review, overview of literary elements, etc. it's a totally different course now. i'm trying to do all the reworking in 1 week too!!!! that way i'll only be behind my original schedule by one week.